Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Soldier Son Trilogy by Robin Hobb by Karen S. Wiesner

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Soldier Son Trilogy by Robin Hobb

by Karen S. Wiesner 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

 

Robin Hobb (who also writes as Megan Lindholm) is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings, which I've been reviewing here on the Alien Romances Blog. Soldier Son Trilogy is a separate, unrelated, fantasy series set in a fictional place called the Kingdom of Gernia. Resembling the 19th century American frontier, this post-colonial secondary world has several interesting historical counterpoints. In this series, Gernia is a strange combination (to someone like me, who doesn't care for war dramas) of civilized and war-like. Having lost to a vastly superior naval force, Gernia's military moves inland, conquering the natives called Plainsmen (natives) and Specks (powerful magic users who have all but been driven out of the frontier and now only exist in the Barrier Mountains). Racial and culture tensions are in full force, as it's only been a generation or two since Gernia conquered the indigenous tribes. 

In this world, Gernia has a distinct patriarch hierarchy. Sons of nobles inherit according to their ages. The eldest assumes the father's title, a second son serves as an army officer, while the third becomes a priest, and the fourth an artist. Daughters all fill submissive roles with arranged marriages that increase social standing. The main character in these books is Nevare Burvelle, the second son of a newly promoted Lord. 

The first book, Shaman's Crossing, was published in 2005. It's focused on a soldier son, Nevare's, education. Every aspect of Nevare's life in the opening has been on his future career as a soldier. Still a teenager, Nevare's father passes him into the hands of his greatest enemy for training. His logic in doing so is to teach Nevare "things he cannot learn from a friendly tutor". During this torturous tutelage that nearly kills him, Nevare experiences a vision in which he meets Tree Woman, a Speck. His trainer urges him to kill her but instead Nevare makes a pact with her and becomes a weapon of the magic to help halt Gernia's destruction of the forest. While this encounter was deeply profound, Nevare manages to escape and resumes his life, heading to the military academy to begin formal preparation in becoming a soldier. Near the end of the book, Dark Evening, an annual carnival, brings the first Specks to Old Thares. Tree Woman influences Nevare, compelling him to use the magic she instilled in him during his first vision. This results in a widespread plague overtaking the town and those at the academy. Caught between two worlds, Nevare attempts to sever his ties to Tree Woman, realizing this one who's become his lover in the fever dreams, has enchanted him to do her bidding. 

Book 2, Forest Mage, was published in 2006. It pretty much picks up where the previous left off. The academy is recovering from the Speck plague that killed so many. The students who've survived, for the most part, have been forced to leave the academy. What's happening to Nevare is unthinkable though. The plague has done the reverse with him than with all the others. Instead of leaving him weak and thin, he's become fat and is rapidly becoming fatter. While he left Shaman's Crossing believing he'd conquered the magic and destroyed it, the opposite is the case. He's now filled with the magic and he doesn't realize the visions he's been having are actually happening to him as he gives himself over to the magic. No one in the world he's always known believes he's anything but a big, fat pig who's now unworthy to be a soldier son. His father, especially, is monstrously cruel, dismissive, and ashamed of him, eventually all but disowning him. 

It was hard not to laugh about how ridiculous this plotline was. It was like reading Dreamcatcher by Stephen King, in which flatulence became a plot device. At first, I was laughing in shock, but the farting became so absurd, it was impossible to take the book seriously. (Apparently King wrote it while under the influence of Oxytocin and now no longer cares for the book at all. I don't blame him.) While it's sad when overweight individuals are unfairly ridiculed, as if there's nothing else to them but their size, this book was an apt portrayal of superficial judgments by superficial people. So much more was going on below the surface here. However, I felt Nevare's character was rapidly revealing itself to be wishy-washy. In Book 1, he seemed loyal to the beliefs he was raised with, not merely trying to gain his father's approval. Here, he's questioning everything yet going back and forth between his world views. Other people's bad behavior (his worthless father's, for instance) more often than not turn him into a rebel who acts out simply because he wants to hurt the person who hurt him. The magic compounds this in ways he could never have anticipated and quickly regrets. This installment concluded in a way that made it clear Nevare can no longer straddle two very different worlds, as he's been trying to since the magic took him. Sooner rather than later, he'll have to make a choice.

Renegade's Magic, released in 2007, concludes the trilogy. Navare is dealing with a disjointed, dual personality when his body is taken over by a Speck spirit intent on wiping the Gernians out of all thought and mind. Navare's consciousness remains intact within the body, horrified by what his body snatcher is doing through him, but he's occasionally able to dream-walk in order to talk to his cousin, sister, and father. Eventually he realizes that the war inside him is mirrored in the war outside between the Speck people and the Gernians. If some compromise isn't made, they'll destroy each other. Long story short, Nevare undermines the Gernians' goal to clear the forest in order to build the King's road by capturing royalty's greedy interest in a gold mine instead. I thought that was fairly clever as a wrap-up to a plot that didn't seem possible to end in a happily ever after. I also felt like it spoke to real-life history, in which war may be temporarily averted by selfish greed, but inevitably violence comes back around. 

Instead of reading this trilogy, I listened to the audiobooks. I'm not sure I would have found the trilogy compelling enough, even from the first book, had I not taken this route. The last, especially, was painfully long (768 pages in the mass market paperback; 29 1/2 hours for the audio). I started skipping chapters here and there, which allowed me to get the gist of the plot development without having to be bored with the author's excruciating "glacial pace" (Publisher's Weekly). Undoubtedly, the books are extremely well-written, despite being padded with every possible, boring indulgence on Hobb's part. While Navare was a well-rounded protagonist, as were most of the other characters, I didn't feel the same connections with the characters nor were they as captivating as the Elderlings cast. Also, much of Book 1's content is focused on Navare's King's Cavalla Academy education, where Old Lords and the King's New Lords engage in society-status rivalry, which held little intrigue for a reader not enamored with war stories or rich/snobbish people who consider themselves superior to all other humans for little or no reason. The "fat, magical Navare" plot was also hard to take seriously in Book 2 but made a bit more sense in Book 3. (Note: In this book, magic uses fat as a conduit, so the more blubber, the better.) While I felt like the native people versus usurper and their progress theme was a bit heavy-handed, I found the magic aspects interesting enough to put up with three bloated volumes in order to reach a satisfying conclusion. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The World of the White Rat with Swordheart and The Clocktaur War by T. Kingfisher, Part 2 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The World of the White Rat with Swordheart and The Clocktaur War by T. Kingfisher, Part 2

by Karen S. Wiesner 

Beware potential spoilers! 

Last week I reviewed T. Kingfisher's novel Swordheart, a medieval fantasy in The World of the White Rat (sometimes called The Temple of the White Rat). This umbrella series includes The Saint of Steel series, which I reviewed not long ago on the Alien Romances Blog, as well as Clocktaur War. This week I'll review the two books in the Clocktaur War.

I purchased ebook copies of the two Clocktaur War stories, steampunk fantasy romance novels. Yet again (sigh!), I think I read every part of this series out of order. On her website, the author suggests that the best order to read these interconnected books is the same as the publication order, namely:

Clocktaur War

Clockwork Boys, Book 1 (November 2017)

The Wonder Engine, Book 2 (July 2018)

Swordheart

Swordheart, Book 1 (November 2018)

Daggerbound, Book 2 (to be released in August 2026, and this one may actually take place later--after The Saint of Steel books; we'll have to see)

The Saint of Steel

Paladin's Grace, Book 1 (February 2020)

Paladin's Strength, Book 2 (February 2021)

Paladin's Hope, Book 3 (October 2021)

Paladin's Faith, Book 4 (December 2023)

In Swordheart, Jorge relates this to Halla and the advocate divine Zale from the Order of the White Rat: "It's been a mess. Since the Clockwork Boys got turned off, all the demons that were running the damn things jumped…well, you know. Five years and we're still cleaning up the mess." That puts something of a timeline on all this. I assume based on this that the Clocktaur War titles took place five years before Swordheart. It's not clear how long after Swordheart the Saint of Steel books take place, however, in my review of that series, specifically for Paladin's Hope, Galen talks about how he'd had some experience with "wonder" (mechanical and magical) doors and machines. At that time, I speculated about whether the two stories in the Clocktaur War told this story Galen references. The answer is, yes, in part at least. The mess with the Clockwork Boys being deactivated and demons taking over everything is the story told in Clocktaur War. However, Galen himself wasn't necessarily involved in the direct events taking place in the Clocktaur War books. His order, the paladins of the Saint of Steel, probably assisted The Dreaming God religious order paladins in "cleaning up" the demons that got loose in the Clocktaur War, but that particular tale is told offstage of any of the books in this world.

Clockwork Boys, Book 1, is little more than a (230-page) introduction to the actual story. Here, the plot of the Dowager of the capital realm wanting to figure out who's sending Clockwork Boys from a rival kingdom to wage war against her is set up. Clockwork Boys are unstoppable, centaur-like, living though mechanical soldiers that have four to six legs, are eight to ten feet tall and covered with gears. Her desperate, last-ditch attempt to put a stop this is to have a master forger and thief who's a descendent of a minor wonder worker (Slate, the only female in the band) assemble a team for a final suicide mission. The Dowager had previously sent two proper teams with military and artificers but none have returned alive, nor stopped the devastation. Already in place is assassin-for-hire (Brenner) who was Slate's lover a few years ago. The second one recruited (comprising the opening chapters of Clockwork Boys) is a disgraced and disillusioned paladin named Caliban, who's considered a traitor by his temple and been imprisoned because he became infected with the demon he was trying to exorcise for The Dreaming God. He ended up killing a lot of people during his possession. Learned Edmund, initially a misogynist, teenage dedicate for the Many-Faced God, rounds out the group when he volunteers to accompany them. He's made the study of arcane machinery his specialty.

While none of the criminals that encompass the group anticipate making it out of this situation alive, they have a very good reason for wanting to. Their motivation continues to develop as they begin to bond and Slate and Caliban complicate things by falling in love with each other. They've been promised pardons and generous rewards for their crimes if they succeed where others have failed. There are also consequences (in the form of a carnivorous tattoo that will eat them alive) if they try to bolt prematurely.

Getting to Anuket City is just the first hurdle, but naturally the war-torn cities and no-man's land between there and the capitol are being ravaged by Clockwork Boys and cause the band of criminals no end of trouble. They find a wonder-engine along the way--a device created by an ancient artificer (in this series, this amounts to a magical inventor) and this reaffirms that someone must have activated a wonder-engine to create the Clockwork Boys in such scores.

Both books in this duology are one story, but, as that would have made it a very large volume indeed (Book 2 has 360 pages), it was split in two, the first ending on a cliffhanger before the group arrives in Anuket City. If both books hadn't been available at the time I was reading them long years after their initial release, I would have been so annoyed. A cliffhanger shouldn't be a legitimate way to end any book in an overarching series if all the volumes aren't available to be read at the same time or nearly so. A month apart is forgivable, but not much more than that. In my mind, any significant gap between interconnected books is cruel and permissible grounds for abandoning the series, as I surely would have if I'd had to wait nearly a year to get my hands on Book 2 the way the readers of the first published edition of Clockwork Boys had to. Okay, so I wouldn't have abandoned the series. It's just too good. 

Within the first tale is where the group of misfits begins to learn about and tentatively trust one another, discovering individual secrets and conflicts, and becoming committed to each other as well as their cause. A gnole named Grimehug (who's been captured by a demon-possessed herd of runes) joins their company once they escape and he helps them. Anuket City has been pervaded by countless gnoles trying to rebuild their lives and culture beside humans who tolerate, basically ignore, but also oppress them. I love the complicated and colorful gnoles! What a cheerful addition to this medieval fantasy world.

In The Wonder Engine, Book 2, the story continues right where it left off in Book 1 with the band now inside Anuket City and on the lookout for Learned Edmund's counterpart there-- Brother Amandai, who's disappeared. The two had corresponded prior to that, and Learned Edmund's knows the scholar kept detailed notes about the wonder-engines he encountered. Learned Edmund has also secured the help of a master artificer, Ashes Magnus, who adds more comic relief and vigor to the story.

The romance, as usual for Kingfisher, was mostly annoying between Slate and Caliban because, like angsty teenagers, they just kept telling themselves they couldn't be together (I didn't find their reasons for refraining legitimate, let alone persuasive)…until they finally got it over with and just did it. Up until the end of the story, when the romance becomes more authentic and compelling, the basis for their relationship seemed to be built on Slate thinking Caliban was pretty and doable, while Caliban seemed to need to replace the god that abandoned him with someone to worship and follow. Slate wasn't the type of girl who expected poetry and roses, and she was uber-sensitive about being treated like a frail girly-girl. In her past relationship with Brenner, they both took what they wanted from each other--nothing more and nothing less. They understood how the game was played in that regard. In contrast, Caliban is a knight by profession, and he's something of a prude about sex because of his innate chivalry. T. Kingfisher is known for marvelous humor in her stories, both in the interactions between the story people and in the character dialogue and introspection. Instead of this silly angsting she falls back on like she doesn't really know any other way to develop a valid romance relationship, I wish she'd made the in-your-face sexual tension something that Slate and Caliban bantered about with each other and within their team until the bond grew between them honestly and cohesively. While the trope of a romance triangle is clichéd to death, I felt there was enough intrigue in this one, considering the late-developing curveball, to warrant and make it fresh. The events in the wrap-up chapters did manage to pull off a satisfactory romantic conclusion, which I was grateful for.

The steampunk "horror" in this fantasy novel was some of the best I've ever read in what I consider an otherwise hit-and-miss subgenre of science fiction incorporating industrial steam-powered technology. I really enjoyed every aspect of that and the tension as our merry band of broken villain-turned-heroes figure out how to take down terrifying magical siege machines. The group dynamics and all their built-in internal conflicts meshed wonderfully and were fully fleshed out. This is a solid strength evident in nearly every story I've read by this author. I also adore her medieval worlds, and this one has become a particular favorite. The twist at the end was well-worth even the eye-rolling angsting Slate and Caliban elicited from me for most of the two books.

Ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised by the story told in Clocktaur War. I was anticipating a kind of young adult weird steampunk thing I probably wouldn't enjoy. Instead I was treated to an adult (but still mostly a clean romance), high-stakes, fun, steampunk medieval fantasy with lawbreakers that stole my heart after I realized they were honorable, despite their crimes. The mix of well-developed characters that played off each other's strengths and weaknesses was flawless. Clocktaur War kind of reminded me of the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie, but I believe this one would make an even better film, if someone wisely chose to undertake it.

The author apparently spent a decade writing these two books, and, in her author's note, she said she intended to write Learned Edmund's adventures--with Slate and Caliban (and hopefully Grimehug) dropping in. We'll see what the future holds, but as it's been eight years since the publication of The Wonder Engine, she may be too far away from the series to feel capable of revisiting it.

~*~

As I said about The Saint of Steel series in a previous review, if you're looking for something unusual and unconventional in your reading, written as if the author actually lived in medieval times, these books that make up The World of the Rat umbrella series could be right up your alley, as they definitely are mine. Darn, now I wish I'd bought paperbacks of Clocktaur War instead of too-easily-lost ebooks.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog and her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The World of the White Rat with Swordheart and The Clocktaur War by T. Kingfisher, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The World of the White Rat with Swordheart and The Clocktaur War by T. Kingfisher, Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner 

Beware potential spoilers! 

T. Kingfisher's medieval fantasy The World of the White Rat (sometimes called The Temple of the White Rat) is an umbrella series that includes The Saint of Steel series, which I reviewed not long ago on the Alien Romances Blog, as well as Clocktaur War (with two books) and the novel Swordheart. 

 

I purchased the deluxe hardcover edition of Swordheart that came out in February 2025, a reissue of the November 2018 novel. The deluxe copy has gorgeous turquoise sprayed edges with a silvery turquoise foil stamp of a sword on the cover and custom decorated endpapers. This as-untraditional-as-it-gets medieval romance has been described as The Princess Bride meets bodyguard romance. Halla, a widow, inherits her dead husband's wealthy uncle's estate, but greedy relatives scheme to steal it from her. The great-aunt Malva locks her in her room until she agrees to marry her son, the clammy-handed Alver, a milquetoast mama's boy. Halla sees no other recourse but to kill herself--what she sees as her only means of escape. To that end, she pulls down the decorative sword that's been hanging on her bedroom wall for as long as she can remember. Probably to ensure her clothing doesn't get bloody, she undresses and prepares to run herself through, something she quickly discovers is easier said than done. When she finally comes up with a plan for how to do that, she unsheathes the weapon and a knight appears, promising to serve the wielder of the enchanted sword. You know, after he gets over the shock of seeing her buck naked. 

Sarkis is anything but a hero--gaining immortality and servitude as punishment for his crimes in life is how he came to be forged into the sword in the first place. But he agrees to help the curvaceous chatterbox any way he can--at first, at least, in large part because he has no choice but to obey the sword owner. After the two escape the estate, they begin a journey to the Temple of the White Rat, where Halla hopes to get legal help to stake a claim on her unexpected inheritance. 

This amusingly irreverent order worshipping a rat is made up of lawyers, healers, and other community service workers. Various followers of this temple played roles in the four books of The Saint of Steel, and I believe at least one Temple of the White Rat character from that series makes a reappearance here (but I'm not entirely certain**). Also, gnoles (a race of talking badgers that are a part of human society in this medieval world) are included in Swordheart. I think the gnole Brindle was in one or more of The Saint of Steel stories. Additionally, members of the Order of the Sainted Smith (specifically, the vaunted woman blessed by the Forged God with the skill to imprison Sarkis and his two companions), the Hanged Motherhood, and The Dreaming God religious order dedicated to slaying demons (all mentioned in The Saint of Steel) make appearances here in various degrees. The amorous paladin Jorge that Slate meets up with in the first book is one of three paladins for The Dreaming God, and he also appeared in Paladin's Faith. I love that kind of continuity in connected stories. 

**It's difficult to keep track of minutiae in such a vast network of main, secondary, and ancillary characters and world-building elements. Mixed up in this is the fact that every single book in The Saint of Steel as well as Swordheart is impossibly long and, in my opinion, bloated with unforgivable romantic apprehension which produces angst more suited to teenagers than adults between the romantic couple spotlighted in each volume as the individuals try to talk themselves out of falling in love with each other, and for no good reason. This distress is a massively disappointing substitute for true sexual tension and relationship development. Sadly, all of Kingfisher's romance-slanted stories I've (so far) read suffer from this malady, in my opinion. 

In any case, Halla and Sarkis' journey is long and fraught with never-ending hilarity at times bordering on (fortunately, mostly fun) ridiculousness, contradictory tender mawkishness sprinkled with shocking vulgarity (another common trait of Kingfisher's anti-romance stories), and plain good entertainment. A weird thing about this particular story is that there isn't a whole lot at stake, so there's little plot tension, and yet almost nothing seems to go right for either of the two main characters. These minor issues that crop up are in the foreground and develop because of character-inspired "clumsiness" (for lack of a better description). They aren't usually the main plots going around viable twisty turns. They're just random situations that crop up to thwart Halla and Sarkis's progress toward their goal. For example, they're robbed at one point because Hallas stupidly trusted some woman who asked for her help at an inn. The female turned out to be part of a gang of robbers. Minor problems like that happen more frequently in this story than, say, a plot element that goes off on a necessary bender. Instead, in Swordheart, legitimate plot developments tend to go smoothly, almost without a hitch. As a result, the external plot comes off as almost too easily resolved. 

Also, the stakes didn't feel quite high enough. The worst thing that could have happened at the end of Swordheart was that Halla would have a) gotten the inheritance and taken Sarkis as her life companion (best case scenario), b) been forced to marry a man she didn't care for (worst case scenario), or c) just fended for herself in the world without either man or the money (middling scenario). None of those options seemed particularly end-of-the-world in the spinning of this novel. 

While the lack of critical, escalating tension and high stakes didn't exactly make the story and its full-fleshed-out characters drastically less enjoyable, this aspect did make the novel a bit less memorable than it could have been with higher stakes and less easily resolved external conflict. 

I liked (didn't love) this low-key, off-the-cuff tale that included an okay romance that's mildly similar to Shrek, with a very unlikely pair cast as hero and heroine who, by all logical estimations can't possibly end up with a happily ever after but somehow do. I also loved dipping back into Kingfisher's well-constructed medieval world that feels like home now. 

In the note in the back of Swordheart, the author said she intended to write a trilogy that includes Sarkis's two companions in life, Angharad and Dervish. She also said she was already working on the sequel--Angharad's story specifically. However, on her website, when asked if there will be a sequel to Swordheart, she says, "I hope so. For some reason, the Dervish’s story just does not want to come out. I’ve tried everything short of an icepick. Hopefully it will unjam at some point. I’ve got about 15K on it, and it’s not dead, it’s just…slow." On Goodreads, it says Swordheart #2 (which I assume includes one of the two stories of Sarkis's mercenary companions who were bound into magic steel as punishment for their crimes), Daggerbound, is to be published in January 2026. On my Libby library app, I discovered an actual back cover blurb for the book, which tags Dervish as the main character in the book. There, it states the book will be released August 24, 2026. Who knows which is correct? The deluxe edition of Swordheart #1 is probably in preparation for the upcoming release of the sequel. I may review it if/when it's released, as well as any future follow-ups. Note: I'm unclear whether the author has finished Angharad's story that she claimed to be working on in the Swordheart author note, but it seems that the Dervish story may have unjammed itself and become #2 in the trilogy instead of #3.

Next week I'll continue this review with the two books in Clocktaur War. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog and her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Saint of Steel Series by T. Kingfisher by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Saint of Steel Series by T. Kingfisher

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

 

Beware potential spoilers! 

To describe T. Kingfisher's medieval fantasy The Saint of Steel series as romance is a bit off the mark. No doubt it has lateral shoots toward it but those tendrils into the genre are anything but conventional. The language and love scenes are unexpectedly crude, the way erotica can sometimes be, though all volumes frequently dip into the (frequently eye-rolling) tender mawkishness of traditional romance offerings. I suspect strongly that the author intended exactly this unorthodox straddling of categories when she was writing it. 

Whatever its classification, for the most part, I found it to be a breath of fresh air. Full disclosure: For all intents and purposes, I stopped reading romances (other than the young adult variety) about twenty years ago. I can't really say that was a conscious decision. More that I'd expanded past the romance-heavy books that dominated the reading of my twenties and early thirties. And, admittedly, I no longer cared for the requisite love scenes that were so much a part of this genre. I discovered another nice thing about audiobooks is that you can fast-forward past sections in 15-second intervals. I did that a lot with these. In any case, it was a bit strange for me to take up a romance series--unconventional as this was--again after all this time away. 

Once I'd finished with Kingfisher's audiobook of A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (I reviewed it recently on this blog), the only available audiobooks by this author on my library app were these four books in The Saint of Steel series. Weirdly, all of them were available to check out there and then, so I was able to listen to them back-to-back. The fact that they were readily obtainable when none of her others were made me wonder if they weren't any good. Luckily, I found that wasn't the case. I also learned that when something is "DRM free", as I think this series is, it means that unlimited electronic copies are distributed. No waiting lines! Nice for readers, probably not so much for the author or publisher. 

The premise of this series is that an order of berserker paladins loses the Saint of Steel they serve when he dies. Unthinkably--to me anyway--in this fictional medieval time period the series is set in, these saints are venerated as gods; in fact, the words "saint" and "god" pretty much mean the same thing here. After his death, his followers go on a mad rampage of death before they're broken. That's covered in a short prologue in Book 1. Years later, the seven survivors have been taken into the service of the (irreverent but amusingly so) Temple of the Rat, made up of lawyers, healers, and other community service workers. Here, they can again do good. 

By nature, paladins are selfless, chivalrous, and honest to a fault. However, these knights are forever in danger of losing themselves to the berserker rage (called the black tide) they can't control once its unleashed. I loved how natural the world building in this medieval setting is in the author's hands. She does medieval effortlessly, as if she herself actually lives in that time period. 

There are four books in this series:

Paladin's Grace, Book 1 (2020)

Paladin's Strength, Book 2 (2021)

Paladin's Hope, Book 3 (2021)

Paladin's Faith, Book 4 (2023)

 

In Paladin's Grace, the knitting paladin Stephen is the focus. Grace is a perfumer he rescues one night and then the two become embroiled in a conspiracy plot against the crown prince as well as investigating necromantic serial killings in which the victim's heads are chopped off; black magic clay heads are then implanted into the corpses to make an army of monsters. 

This story had some clichéd romantic elements. Stephen was such a do-gooder he was always worrying about losing control whenever he and Grace found themselves in a compromising sexual situation. Frequently, that led to sex between them being tabled, which got a little stale after a while. Grace is also the victim of a philandering husband who made her believe she was frigid and so she spends a lot of wasted time pushing Stephen away on that premise. The first actual love scene was a little icky for me--as far from romantic as it gets. I wanted to shout, Please, close the door! I believe the author wrote it the way she did to avoid all potential for purple prose or swooning. She may have gone a little too far on that point. I learned after that to fast-forward to get past these excruciating scenes. That said, the rest of the romance and suspense plotlines were, at turns, fun, funny, sweet, and even heartwarming. The happily ever after between Stephen and Grace was, fittingly, out of the ordinary for a romance novel as well, in that the couple didn't have a picket fence and 2.5 kids in their future. They would both continue as they had been, only now they were together. I really liked that Grace's best friend Marguerite was a very avant garde character. The reader didn't know what she might do next. I also liked the introduction of a race of talking badgers that are a part of human society in this medieval world. 

Book 2 in the series, Paladin's Strength, takes up paladin Istvhan's (mentioned in Book 1) story. He's paired with Clara, a very large (nearly his own considerable size), capable woman who's a nun from a secretive order. Clara is hiding something shocking and intriguing that really adds something to the story. Her sisters have been kidnapped. She doesn't know why, but she intends to find out. Istvhan's company--that she originally thought was a band of mercenaries--helps her and, along the way, finds out that the necromantic serial killer from Book 1 is still on the loose. 

There's also a gnole in this story, as there was in Book 1 (I don't think it's the same one) who accompanies Istvhan's company. I loved this interesting, unexpected character. Additionally, we got to revisit Stephen and Grace's happily ever after, which was nice. I liked the main characters, their amusing repertoire, and the romance that seemed joyfully inevitable despite their circumstances. However, as in Paladin's Grace, the angst that Istvhan and Clara go through about whether they should be allowed to fall in love and have sex with each other gets really annoying with such a long book. Teenagers are less angsty than Kingfisher's couples in this series. At one point (64% into the 16-hour audiobook), Clara thinks to herself, What's wrong with me? I should have been riding this man until we both walk funny. That about sums it up. Just do it already! The author also has far too many albeit plausible (but still annoying) interruptions getting in the way of sex. The overwhelming build-up tends to make the actual event disappointing when it finally comes. I'm beginning to fear the entire series might suffer from this particular malady. 

In general, I enjoyed this story and its characters very much, though it was far too long. There were two external plotlines and both got the full treatment. While I think they were both well done, the book seemed nevertheless excruciatingly endless. The angst could have been blessedly cut and taken with it a good one or two hundred pages. 

The gay paladin, Galen, mentioned in Book 1 and having played a large role in Book 2, is in the spotlight in Paladin's Hope. In the first book, we learned that he's struggled more with survival after the Steel Saint's death than the others. His nightmares used to end in a berserker rage, but he's found that being on the road helps temper the bad dreams quite a bit. He now goes weeks or longer without having one. 

In this story, Galen is paired with a lich-doctor (a physician that works among the dead, determining causes of death for city investigations) named Piper. Piper has a useful, intriguing skill that aids him in his profession. He calls it "wonder working"--when he touches a dead body, he can see what happened the last few seconds of their life before death. When a tenacious and brave constable gnole decides there are too many mysterious bodies piling up, he enlists Piper and Galen's to help him find the source. That's the only suspense plotline in this book, and that made it a lot shorter to get through, which was nice. Unfortunately, Galen and Piper are just as tormented with worry as the previous couples, so fast-forward, fast-forward, fast-forward! 

Side note: The Saint of Steel series books are also associated with some of Kingfisher's other titles set in the same medieval fantasy world. The umbrella series is referred to as "The World of the White Rat" and includes The Saint of Steel as well as Clocktaur War (with two books) and the novel Swordheart. I intend to read all of those soon and maybe review them here. The reason I mention this is because, in this story, Galen talks about how he'd had some experience with "wonder" (mechanical and possibly magical) doors and machines. The two stories in the Clocktaur War may tell this story Galen references. I'll have to see. Early in Paladin's Hope, Galen, Piper and the gnole are forced behind a wonder door, into a labyrinth filled with deadly traps they'll have to get through to escape. 

In the course of the book, readers briefly get to see the happily-ever-afters of the two previous couples, which I enjoyed. I liked the fully-fleshed out characters and the new mystery plot in this tale that's nicely focused without too much expansion from that point. 

 

The final book in the series, Paladin's Faith, features Marguerite and paladin Shane, her bodyguard. She's trying to escape a former employer who's part of a powerful organization that wants her dead. Along the way, the couple have to dodge a demon-led cult that's out to get them. Additionally, Marguerite, Shane, and another paladin--a female named Wren--go undercover to hunt for an artificer who's crafted a device that could devastate the world. Also, though I never really thought about it before, the suspicious death of the Saint of Steel that all these paladins served is brought up in this book as yet another suspense angle. 

Again, this story was far too long and overburdened with subplots upon subplot. Combine this with yet another angsty romance between two people who spend far too much time telling themselves they can't anything with the other, and it's a surefire recipe for overload. Sigh. The female paladin Wren, who's like a sister to Shane, added an interesting viewpoint to this tale. Despite the negatives, I did enjoy the overall story, the compelling cast of characters, and the multi-faceted mysteries were capably handled from start to finish. 

Note that according to the author, though there are seven surviving paladins, these are the only four stories she intends to write (well, Wren is a paladin and a good chunk of her story was told in this last book, so perhaps we can say five stories were told within the four books, leaving potentially two untold), though further entries aren't out of the realm of possibility in the future. I expect Kingfisher didn't initially anticipate writing more than a trilogy with The Saint of Steel but Marguerite probably got a lot of requests for a story of her own. I for one would have felt disappointed without finding out what happened to her after Book 1. 

To sum up, if you're looking for something unusual and unconventional in your romance reading, this series is certainly worth your time. Beware the teenager apprehension you'll get around every corner between the couples, but, alas, that's what audiobooks and fast-forward buttons are for. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Fellow-Passengers to the Grave by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Fellow-Passengers to the Grave

by Karen S. Wiesner 

I've spent the last several years trying to find exactly the right word to describe a situation in which a choice by someone else is made that you don't necessarily celebrate, support, or even agree with--and yet you nevertheless go along with it in compassionate graciousness. 

Like clothes I'm discarding as just not quite right, I've tried on several words that are close to the sentiment I'm striving for yet don't fully cover it. In each case, for a few minutes, I think "That must be the word I'm looking for." Then a little time passes and I realize yet another term is inadequate to describe it. Over and over, I've tossed inefficient sentiments away, and I anticipate, by the end of this article, I'll shelve another incompetent wanna-be. Here's my reasoning for turning close-but-no-cigar options aside: 

Respect, these days, suggests a ladder that must be climbed. Frankly, the connotations make me squirm. It should mean "worthy of regard" and every person on the planet receives it by simple virtue of being part of the human race. Yet we've turned this term into some kind of an obstacle course in which we test the worthiness of someone and, if they're found lacking, we withhold basic human regard. Aren't equal rights a foundation that demands we learn to see every living being as worthy of respect, and therefore we don't pass judgment on their personal decisions? 

Accept implies one person is in the high position of having a say in the private choices another makes. No one is and no one should. Everyone has free will, not just one. I have no right to question someone else's choices, whether to agree or disagree with them, especially if I don't want my own dissected and then ripped to shreds in endless debates as if someone is heading a "God of the Universe" committee. When it comes to someone else's beliefs, we have to have that kind of humility. Who do we think we are if I supersede other humans' judgments in how they run their own lives? 

Tolerate is another term that's not quite right. With this one, there is a willingness to accept the feelings, habits, and beliefs of others that are different from our own. Unfortunately, this one has also become a bad word in terms of the negative connotations it suggests. For religious people, the word seems to demand a compromise of principles or the condoning of bad behavior, which is not at all the direction we should be going. On the other side of the coin, for some it infers, "You have to agree with me--or else." So often, "But I won't give the same courtesy" is the unspoken tagalong to such a selfish sentiment in behavior if not verbally. It's so easy for people to convey by their intolerance that their own beliefs are superior; therefore, other human beings must change to suit them or else punishment will be meted out in the form of spurning, bullying, or far worse violence. Where's the freedom in that? Don't compassion and the right to our own opinions matter anymore? 

Forbear is a word I found when I went to an online dictionary and looked up synonyms of the previous words I discarded. I was impressed with this term on the whole, since it conveys patient restraint and discernment rather than harsh sentencing. Here, too, though, there's undoubtedly a bit of negativity, probably because of its connection to banking and because the phrase "long-suffering" tends to join it too often. You can almost see someone rolling their eyes, sighing loudly, and saying grudgingly, "Well, all right, I'll practice forbearance, but only if I absolutely have to." If not for that, this particular word might be one of the closest I've discovered to what I want to convey in this situation. 

 

Recently I had a new thought on this subject (bear with me; there's a parallel coming): We human beings breathe air because we have to in order to survive. In the same way, when another person makes a decision we would almost rather they hadn't--and yet we have to live with that choice--we need to convey something like respect, genuine acceptance, tolerance, and certainly patient, restrained forbearance because we realize that our opinion is beside the point and a non-factor. Our response has to be the same as needing air to survive. It is what it is. Our feelings don't factor into other people's choices. They can't. They unequivocally don't. They shouldn't. Straightforward accommodation on our parts is the only acceptable response. This term implies displaying selfless hospitality, of seeking to meet the needs of others above our own, serving their best interests, and humbly and willingly bending like a reed if we can provide assistance to those in need around us. 

But, no, once again, a word for a moment holds brilliance, then falls short in the next span of time. Accommodation also lacks perfection in conveying what I'm looking for because of the negative climate we live in. In today's world, accommodating someone else's wishes indicates having to force ourselves to do something for a dubious or moot "good cause". 

Sigh. I suspect this search of mine is a lost cause because no such word actually exists. Alternately, humans may change the meaning or intention of language by popular opinion, or, bottom line, our experiences with certain words shape us emotionally for good or ill. One man's truth is another's trash. Not everyone derives the same meaning we do with words. 

Nevertheless, at Christmas-time, I always think of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. My search for the perfect word fits this theme. One eloquent quote for that timeless story that comes to my mind is how we're all "fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys". "Creatures bound on other journeys"--intimates that we have nothing in common with each other, no means of finding mutual understanding or the slightest reason to get along and work together. Do we actually think that way? We've all gone that route a time or two in our lifetimes, as unpleasant as it can be to admit in retrospect. But the key to integrating as fellow-passengers on this journey we call life is in the accommodation of others, mutual cooperation, and realizing we're not alone in this world. We can't live as though no one and nothing else but ourselves matters. Consider: 

You do you. Allow me to do me. Let others do them. 

You don't have to like everybody but do at least strive to get along. 

The best way to love someone is not to judge; it's not your place. 

Do to others as you want done to yourself. Yes, even if you don't get the same in return. 

Pay it forward "blindly" so as not to judge the person you're trying to help--do it as an act of gratitude to those anonymous ones that gave generously in your own life. 

Compromise and accommodation are often the only paths to peace. 

A gift that's earned or merely a repayment of a debt isn't a gift. The best gift is that of self, bestowed magnanimously. 

Anne Frank said, "No one has ever become poor by giving", but, serendipitously, many become rich by giving of themselves. This accommodation binds instead of breaks the individual as well as the whole. Let's find a way to live in peace on our journey together, fellow-passenger. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review of Three Retold Fairytale Selections by T. Kingfisher by Karen S. Wiesner

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review of Three Retold Fairytale Selections by T. Kingfisher

by Karen S. Wiesner 

Beware potential spoilers! 

 

I bought Nettle & Bone because I'm currently devouring just about everything with author T. Kingfisher's name on it. I didn't know what to expect, beyond that it was dark fantasy, though hardly what most people think of when it comes to a fairy tale. The back cover blurb tagline, "This isn't the kind of fairy tale where the princess marries a prince. It's the one where she kills him" pretty much says it all. Or at least I initially thought it did. I can't really say why it reminded me of The Hunger Games, but something about the heroine Marra in the first handful of pages struck that chord of "responsible heroine takes matters into her own hands" when everyone around her fails to act the way they should. 

In Nettle & Bone, Marra is the youngest of three princesses. She herself is as far from "princessly" as it gets. In order to provide safety for their kingdom, her parents agree to the political marriage of Marra's eldest sister Damia to Prince Vorling. Months later, Damia is dead and Kania, the middle sister, is now Vorling's wife. Marra is sent to a convent. Before long, it becomes clear that Kania is trying to stay pregnant in order to escape the abuses of her cruel husband. Marra and Kania's queen mother knows that her daughters are being abused by this prince, but she chooses the safety of the kingdom above that of her own children. Though it'd be easy to judge the woman on that basis, this story is set during a time when females--not even queens or princesses--had many, if any, options. It was a man's world, and submitting was usually the only real option. Few have Marra's bravery, let alone her willingness to act to right the wrongs she sees in the world around her. There's a curse on all children born in the prince's family, something Marra knows has to do with the godmother who blesses each at birth, and she begins to search for a way to save her sister. 

First, Marra seeks out a powerful gravewitch (also called a dust-wife) who can communicate with the dead. The lone wolf dust-wife gives her three impossible tasks, and, after Marra inconceivably manages the first two of them, the dust-wife gives herself over to joining her foolish quest in killing the prince. The two are joined by the dust-wife's chicken familiar and the sweet, if somewhat half-there, bonedog Marra resurrected. The dust-wife clearly didn't want to be part of a group, let alone a family, but this isn't something she can resist for long. Along the way, they recruit a disgraced knight named Fenris and Marra's own godmother Agnes. 

Nettle & Bone was, initially, written in a non-linear fashion. In the opening scene, Marra is crafting the bone dog. However, the narrative soon begins to circle back around to explaining how she got to that point. I found this very awkward and not terribly compelling. Also, it seemed odd and not entirely convincing to me that Marra started the book telling us she was going to kill the prince despite the fact that Kania hated her, and Marra had known this truth about her sister for most of her life. To start with a character intent on murder without a strong enough reason why took me a little time to swallow. At first, I thought Marra's motivation for acting came down to her realization that, if Kania was killed by the prince, as their eldest sister had been, then Marra would be next in line to take her place. She had to stop that at any cost. That meant killing the prince. However, even that wasn't the full reason. I was soon persuaded that, more often than not, sisters love each other--even when they claim the opposite. It didn't matter Kania's feelings for Marra, whether once upon a time or currently. Kania was being treated as if she was little more than a punching bag and a baby factory. Didn't her personal happiness and well-being matter, or only the collective whole that make up their kingdom? That struck me as a much better motivation than I'd first assumed drove Marra. 

Still, I wasn't enamored of the main character right away (similarly, the heroine in The Hunger Games took a very long time and two full readings of the series to really grown on me). Some fifty pages in, I began to wonder if this story was worth reading. It was around Chapter 7, when Marra and the dust-wife visited the goblin market and rescued Fenris, that I was stunned to acknowledge I could no longer put the book down. I'd gone from half-hearted reading to voraciously being glued to the pages. The appearance of noble and selfless Fenris made Marra somehow human, the way she hadn't quite seemed to be earlier, as she'd focused so single-mindedly on the path set before her. Not long after that, Marra's godmother Agnes joined the crew. She was so scatter-brained, hilarious, and interesting, I just loved her. Soon the reader learns that Agnes, as a magical fairy godmother, isn't just good at blessing newborns with good health, but she also has the power to just as easily curse any being and destroy lives in the process. Yet Agnes has made a deliberate choice not to use her power for evil. 

As lovably impatient and grouchy as the dust-wife feigns to be, she's becoming irresistibly drawn into this group as I myself was being hooked. Fenris described them as "Five of us. Five is a fist. Five is a hand on the enemy's throat." A fist includes a hand, and this is what holds people together as a family and in friendships in the physical sense. Along the path of their quest, this unit had become a family, and I wasn't ready to let them go when the story concluded. I want to see them all again, but the author claims a sequel isn't in the offing. Sigh. I hope that changes, but we'll have to see. 

I'm so glad I didn't stop reading this book that, admittedly, took too long to capture me--though, at least when it finally did, it was irrevocable. I urge everyone who liked The Hunger Games series or loves a fairy tale turned on its head to stick with this one, even if the beginning is a little tough to get through. It's well worth the effort. 

I believe this book is one of many that could be described as "reimagined and unconventional fairytales" by this author. I'm a huge fan of things like that (see my Woodcutter's Grim Series https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/woodcutters-grim-series.html). In trying to get a handle on some of the other books Kingfisher has written in this vein that include a reinterpretation of beloved fairytales, I came up with this list of her selections, arranged below on the basis of publication dates: 

The Seventh Bride ("Mr. Fox"/"The Robber Bridegroom", and other variants) 

Bryony and Roses ("Beauty and the Beast")

The Raven and the Reindeer ("The Snow Queen") 

Thornhedge ("Sleeping Beauty")

A Sorceress Comes to Call ("Goose Girl")

Hemlock & Silver ("Snow White")

In the case of Nettle & Bone, the story doesn't encompass any one specific fairytale--more of a subversion of everything that's been done rolled into one. 

 

Released in 2015, I was able to get the audiobook of Bryony and Roses from one of my library apps. Bryony and her sisters are just getting by after their merchant father's death. But when Bryony stumbles into what she thinks is an abandoned manor to escape a snow storm, she meets Beast, who could be a monster or her fate and future. This clever retelling had a lovely romance that was developed over time, through trials, and much shared experience. The story was very unpredictable, considering how well known the original is. I loved that. The characters were compelling and witty. I was rooting for them even after the dark secret the Beast hid was revealed.

 

Released in 2023, I listened to the audiobook of Thornhedge from the library app. The voice actor had a halting way of reading that was a bit annoying. Luckily the story was short (under four hours). In this reimagined version of Sleeping Beauty, an unconventional knight meets the caretaker of Thornhedge. Toadling is kind of a toad shapeshifter created by fairy magic. She makes it clear that, chivalry aside, waking the sleeping princess might just be the biggest mistake he'll ever make. Luckily, this knight isn't really what most people think of when they imagine a knight--but he is what Toadling longs for. The romance was subtle and sweet, and I enjoyed the author's unusual take on a favorite fairytale of mine. 

Kingfisher thrives at unique and unorthodox perspectives with riveting, fist to the gut twists that come out of nowhere. Nettle & Bone, in particular, would make an amazing film. If you're a fan of reimagined fantasy tales of romance and adventure, whatever you do, don't miss even one of these. I plan to review the rest of Kingfisher's reimagined fairytales when they become available through my library apps. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/